1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus, an animation method, and a program.
2. Description of the Related Art
Due to the recent development in semiconductor technology and information technology, comparatively cheap and high performance information processing apparatuses are becoming more popular in offices and homes. This type of information processing apparatus enables activation of various types of applications in an execution environment provided by an operating system. The types of applications used by the information processing apparatus are various, such as word processing, table calculation, database, communication and graphics. For example, an information processing apparatus with enhanced computational power and drawing capability enables to generate highly realistic graphics with comparative ease or to apply an image transformation process to the generated graphics. For example, a technology of applying an animation to a drawing object is known. The animation here means a transformation behaviour of a drawing object, such as movement, resizing, rotation or the like.
For example, with various applications for presentation, an animation can be applied to an object by selecting an object drawn on a screen and selecting an animation to be applied to the object from menu items. Furthermore, Japanese Patent No. 3861690 discloses a technology relating to an image editing apparatus for drawing on a display screen according to a hand-drawn stroke input by a user and generating an animation function while taking into account an interaction of attractive or repulsive force between adjoining drawing objects. Particularly, this technology is for expressing the interaction between drawing objects based on attribute values added to the drawing objects and generating an animation while taking the interaction into account.